Does adaptive provision of learning activities improve learning in SQL-tutor?

Abstract

Tutored Problem Solving (PS), worked examples (WE) and Erroneous Examples (ErrEx) have all been proven to be effective in supporting learning. We previously found that learning from a fixed sequence of alternating WE/PS pairs and ErrEx/PS pairs (WPEP) was beneficial for students in comparison to learning from a fixed sequence of PS and WEs [1]. In this paper, we introduce an adaptive strategy which determines which learning activities (a WE, a 1-error ErrEx, a 2-error ErrEx or a problem to be solved) to provide to the student based on the score the student obtained on the previous problem. We compared the adaptive strategy to the fixed WPEP strategy, and found that students in the adaptive condition significantly improved their post-test scores on conceptual, procedural and debugging questions.